New Year’s tears, cheers: Leila leaving, news expanding and more

It’s almost time to ring in the New Year. Here are some TV/radio events to toast happily or make you feel a little blue:

Tears! Leila Walsh, one of the best, brightest, warmest and most entertaining reporters on WOAI-TV, will be hanging up her mike at the end of this year.

She has accepted a job in Houston – as senior writer for the Houston School District. “I’ll be writing letters, op-ed pieces and speeches for the district,” she said in a phone call, adding that education is one of the topmost issues in the news today and she’s thrilled to be part of it. It also will allow her to be with her boyfriend Wes Sewell, a photographer at KTRK.

Although she’s enjoyed covering S.A.’s celebrities — particularly being in the locker room after the Spurs’ championship win against Cleveland in 2007 — the favorite part of her job has been sharing the stories of everyday people of San Antonio. As general assignments reporter for WOAI, she said, “I had the privilege each day to sit on the front steps and at kitchen tables and hear their stories and then share them with the rest of the city.”

She also thanked her viewers today on Facebook: “I am very grateful for the past five years in San Antonio. My life is filled with lessons and inspiration from the people I met here. I will carry that with me on this next journey and for years to come.”

We’re also grateful for your five years of keeping us informed. Godspeed, Leila.

Cheers! Starting Jan. 10, KENS-TV is adding a half-hour of news in the morning for those true early birds. Instead of starting at 5 a.m. along with its competitors, “Eyewitness News” will start at 4:30 a.m. “We know that people are working longer hours and getting up much earlier these days,” explained KENS 5 President and General Manager Bob McGann

Oh, and for those worried about Vicki Buffolino, who’s been missing once again from the early news these past two weeks, relax! KENS announced that Vicki and the rest of the crew – co-anchor Fred Lozano, weathercaster Paul Mireles and traffic reporter Natalie Tejeda — will be back to anchor the longer morning news.

Cheers! To KSAT for making sure one of local television’s sunniest assets is kept happy and secure here. Just before Christmas, morning/noon anchorwoman Leslie Mouton signed a new contract with the ABC affiliate. “I have just signed a new multi-year deal with KSAT! I am so very blessed!” she wrote to the delight of her Facebook friends.

Tears! To the many fans of longtime KZEP radio personality Tom “T Bone” Scheppke, who went missing on the station earlier this month. “After 10 great years with classic rocker KZEP 104.5,” Scheppke explained in an e-mail, “budget cuts eliminated my position of midday personality/music director. Counting my 16 years at 99.5 KISS, I have spent over 26 years of rockin’ San Antonio.”

Instead of dwelling on the negative, however, Scheppke’s hoping for a career boost in 2011.
“I’m interested in finding another radio station to continue rockin’ in 2011!,” he wrote. “Along with my Facebook page — Tom T-Bone Scheppke — I’m currently developing a new T-Bone Internet radio station!”

Cool. We’ll be anxiously awaiting updates.

Tears! To listeners who enjoyed the irreverent banter between Jim Bob “The Bear” Breazeale and Mike Taylor on sports radio here.

Jim Bob, formerly Taylor’s sidekick on “Sports Talk San Antonio” (KTKR, “The Ticket” 760), was let go a couple of weeks back and assumes he was part of pre-holidays Clear Channel budget cuts.

“I was called into the office and told that they were, ‘going in the proverbial different direction’ and that I would no longer be employed with Clear Channel,” he wrote me on Facebook. “I guess I would chalk it up to a budget move, because other on-air staffers were let go the day after I was.” (T-Bone from KZEP was one; see above) .

“I loved my time there,” he added. “Doing sports radio in San Antonio was a dream job for me. I never wanted to go anywhere else and would have been more than happy staying at ‘The Ticket for my entire career.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Succeeding him – at least temporarily – was Dawn Murphy of Ticket 760s Saturday morning motorsports radio show “Track Smack.”

In keeping with Breazeale’s wry humor, however, he threw in a hip quip to make the news go down a little better. “I was always told there’s only two types of people in radio,” he wrote, “those who’ve been fired, and those who are GOING to be fired.”

Cheers! To those silly and creative promos on WOAI — including the musical one showing Randy Beamer crooning “White Christmas” (in an impossibly deep voice) along with backup singers Elsa Ramon and Delaine Mathieu. They sure were a pick-me-upper during the holidays. Also fun were ones involving John Gerard being awakened by Santa and Don Harris asking the big bearded guy for a another Spurs NBA championship.

The one that never failed to make me cackle was Beamer’s, um, classy gift to Elsa of that huge golden “6:30″ necklace and her wincing face as she wears the news promo bling on the air.

Here’s hoping for more from the station’s creative promo maker, David Stotts, in the coming year. To watch highlights of the promos, click here. Then, click on “What’s your favorite News 4 Christmas commercial.”